The Harappan civilization is the name given to the mature phase of the Indus Valley civilization, an ancient society that inhabited the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra river valleys in what is now Pakistan and western India. Named after its city of Harappa, the civilization flourished from 2600 to 1900 BCE, developing a technologically advanced urban culture that was likely the result of efficient planning and a government that emphasized hygiene. What modern convenience first developed in its cities?More...

On a hot 4th of July in Washington, DC, Taylor—who had been US president for just 16 months—enjoyed a cool snack of cherries and milk. Five days later, he was dead. The official cause of death was listed as gastroenteritis, an inflammation of the stomach and intestines that can be caused by food poisoning. His remains were exhumed in 1991 and showed no evidence of foul play. According to one historian, Taylor could have recovered had he not been bled, blistered, and given what cocktail of drugs?More...

Sacks is a British-American neurologist and writer. He immigrated to the US in 1960 to study neurology at the University of California, and in 1965 he joined the faculty at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Many of his books relate case histories of neurologically damaged people, particularly those afflicted with unusual conditions. His 1973 book Awakenings, which was made into a film in 1990, chronicles his efforts to treat the survivors of what mysterious sickness?More...

Quotation of the Day

No matter how dreary and gray our homes are, we people of flesh and blood would rather live there than in any other country, be it ever so beautiful. There is no place like home.

The Martyrdom of the Bab is a solemn commemoration of the day in 1850 when the Bab, the first prophet of the Baha'i faith, was executed in Tabriz, Persia (now Iran). Prayers and readings mark the Baha'i holy day, and work is suspended. The Bab was repeatedly exiled and imprisoned by Muslim rulers and priests who opposed the idea that the Bab would provide another avenue to the truth. A committee of priests demanded the Bab's execution; his body was retrieved by his followers and eventually placed in a mausoleum on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel, where the Baha'i headquarters is today.More...

Scientists have designed a robotic stingray that could help our understanding of the human heart. The miniature robot, one-tenth the scale of the actual fish, moves using heart cells taken from a rat. Researchers hope the robotic ray will give new ...More...

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